Team Three/Journal

Day 1 - 1/09 First day in the lab!! We now know where it is...spent a fair amount of time on the pegbot since none of us really knew what we were doing at first. Staff was very helpful. Vamsi taught the rest of us how to wire a breadboard. Blew 3 fuses because test wires (for reading voltage) were too close together, causing leads to touch. Manufacturing of pegbot was rather simple once we got tools - had to shave off sides to make room for wheels. Came up with a basic design and strategy for robot and split up tasks. Anthony and Rebecca will work on CAD while Vamsi finishes converting the Python library to Java and Katherine helps him code. First checkpoint was successfully completed after working out wiring problems.

Day 2 - 1/10 Vamsi and Katherine will work on the code for checkpoint 2, playing with vision but still using bump sensors for walls. Anthony and Rebecca are CADing like crazy to get a draft design done. Making the little parts - motors, servos, battery - is annoying but not difficult. Whole team is debating whether we want to focus on collecting and holding balls or launching them, but a preliminary launching design has been finished in CAD. Still trying to get all the library stuff to Java, but it apparently doesn't like serial communication.

Day 3 - 1/11 Decided that we want to paint red spots on our final robot to confuse the enemy into trying to collect us. Listened to chipmunks. Want to use solenoid for our launcher - will probably steal it from Vamsi's car. Agreed on basic design. Listened to Tron and Matrix music. Took initial pictures for processing. Still converting library. Learned how to use the wiki better (adding files and stuff). Katherine figured out how to find balls! :D

Day 4 - 1/12 Interesting lecture that had nothing to do with the competition. Sent off CAD drawings to Sam for laser cutting. Asked for solenoid. Spent an hour just trying to install the latest versions of Eclipse and Subclipse on all of our computers so we can all access the code. We got our first acrylic plates cut out, but due to time conflicts, Rebecca and Anthony will not be able to start assembly until tomorrow. Katherine and Vamsi stayed late trying to get the camera code to work on the little Asus.

Day 5 - 1/13 Got it once the lab opened (noon). Reinstalled Ubuntu and finally got OpenCV to install. Drilled holes into the base and made our own corner brackets at Edgerton. Watched other robots spin in circles. Still need more acrylic cut and we are waiting for the Solenoid before we can do any other major assembly (should arrive early next week...). Will rubber band collector by jamming a metal rod into 2 gears and wrapping the rubber bands around them. We just need to find some giant rubber bands(able to stretch 12in).

Quote of the day: "I'm an EBay whore!" - Katherine